Lives forever altered

A resident walks down a street covered in beach sand due to flooding from Hurricane Sandy in Long Beach, New York on Tuesday, October 30. View more photos of the recovery efforts in New York. Firefighters work to extinguish flames in a home in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens on Tuesday. The massive fire broke out during the storm and destroyed at least 80 homes Ted Wondsel, owner of Ted's Fishing Station in Long Beach, assesses the damage to his business Tuesday. People wait outside a shelter at the Bergen County Technical Schools Teterboro Campus on October 30, 2012, in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Utility workers from Delmarva Power replace a power pole that was damaged during Hurricane Sandy in Ocean City, Maryland, on Tuesday. Dale Kelly sits on a bench Tuesday on a flooded street in Ocean City, New Jersey, which was hit hard by Superstorm Sandy. Ted Wondsel, left, of Point Lookout works on part of a dock destroyed in the storm in Long Beach on Tuesday. West Broadway in Long Beach is covered in beach sand due to flooding from Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday. Residents walk along a street covered in beach sand after floodwaters from Superstorm Sandy retreated Tuesday in Long Beach. A small plane damaged in the storm sits on a runway in Farmingdale, New York, on Tuesday. Streets remain flooded in portions of Ocean City, New Jersey. Utility workers repair a traffic signal damaged by the storm in Ocean City, New Jersey, on Tuesday. A Virgin Mary statue stands in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens, New York, on Tuesday, October 30, after a fire fed by high winds destroyed at least 80 homes, officials said. President Barack Obama outlines the federal government's response to Superstorm Sandy at the Red Cross headquarters in Washington. Firefighters work to contain the fire in Queens on Tuesday. Some 200 firefighters battled the six-alarm blaze. A man surveys damage to sailboats Tuesday at a marina on City Island in New York. "My message to the federal government: no bureaucracy, no red tape, get resources where they're needed as fast as possible, as hard as possible, and for the duration," Obama said in Washington Tuesday. Both Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney canceled campaign events. People stand on a mound of construction dirt on Tuesday to view a section of the uptown boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, that was destroyed by flooding. A firefighter looks through debris in Queens on Tuesday. In September, the same area endured severe weather as a powerful cold front brought heavy rain, high winds and a tornado. A malfunctioning generator billows black smoke at a building in New York on Tuesday. Mitt Romney helps gather donated goods for storm relief Tuesday in Kettering, Ohio. Emergency personnel help a resident of Little Ferry, New Jersey, onto a boat after rescuing her from floodwater on Tuesday. Dean Walter, left. and Henry Young walk along a seawall in Scituate, Massachusetts, with their surfboards after going into the heavy surf for about 20 minutes on Tuesday. Superstorm Sandy left New York's South Street Seaport flooded and covered in debris on Tuesday. Passers-by look at a car that was crushed by a tree near New York's financial district on Tuesday. Pedestrians and bikers cross the Brooklyn Bridge after the storm on Tuesday. People stand among the debris of the destroyed section of Atlantic City, New Jersey's, uptown boardwalk on Tuesday. Sailboats rest on the ground after being tipped over by Superstorm Sandy on City Island, New York, on Tuesday. Onlookers watch a dangling crane, damaged in the winds of Superstorm Sandy, atop a luxury high-rise under construction in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday. An onlooker snaps a photo of the damaged crane on Tuesday. Jolito Ortiz helps clean up a friend's apartment on New York's lower east side on Tuesday. A tidal surge created by Sandy flooded the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in New York on Tuesday. A worker cuts down a tree near American University in Washington on Tuesday. A home badly damaged by Superstorm Sandy sits along the shoreline in Milford, Connecticut, on Tuesday. An emergency worker carries a resident through floodwaters in Little Ferry, New Jersey, on Tuesday. Police walk past debris left by the storm at Battery Park in New York on Tuesday. Floodwater splashes into the window of a building on the shore in Bellport, New York, on Tuesday. Rescue workers use a hovercraft to rescue a resident using a wheelchair from floodwaters in Little Ferry, New Jersey, on Tuesday. A resident of Little Ferry, New Jersey, assists in rescue efforts with his personal watercraft on Tuesday. The HMS Bounty, a 180-foot sailboat, is submerged in the Atlantic Ocean about 90 miles southeast of Hatteras, North Carolina, on Monday, October 29. A man walks through the debris of a 2,000-foot section of Atlantic City, New Jersey's "uptown" boardwalk on Tuesday. It was destroyed by flooding from Sandy. Downed trees are removed near the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington on Tuesday. Heavy surf buckles Ocean Avenue in Avalon, New Jersey, on Tuesday. Sam Rigby walks on Tuesday near an uprooted tree that grazed his house and hit his neighbor's house in Washington. A photographer shoots waves in Lake Michigan generated by the remnants of Sandy as they crash into the Chicago shoreline on Tuesday. A police officer helps remove a tree branch brought down during the storm in Washington on Tuesday. A man takes pictures of cars from the steps of a home on a flooded street at Hoboken in New Jersey, on Tuesday. A woman wades through water at the South Street Seaport in New York City on Tuesday. A street light and utility pole lie on the street in Avalon, New Jersey, on Tuesday. Atlantic City, New Jersey, resident Kim Johnson inspects the area around her flooded apartment building on Tuesday. A power line knocked over by a falling tree blocks a street in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on Tuesday. Workers shovel debris from the streets in Ocean City, Maryland, on Tuesday. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flies over Central Park in New York on Tuesday. A man jogs near a darkened Manhattan skyline on Tuesday after much of New York City lost electricity. Workers clear a tree blocking East 96th Street in Central Park in New York on Tuesday. View more photos of the recovery efforts in New York. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 Emergency: Dr. Andrew Brotman describes a frantic rush to evacuate 260 patients Rescue: Ralph Verdi's job was to warn people to flee, then to rescue those who didn't listen Death: Claudene Christian was living her dream as a deckhand on the HMS Bounty (CNN) -- Sandy disrupted the lives of millions of people when it turned toward the Northeast United States and morphed into a superstorm. Most will return to their routine in time, but some lives are forever changed. Among those people, here are three of the most compelling stories: Emergency: A desperate rush to save lives in a NYC hospital The doctors, nurses and staff at the New York University's Langone Medical Center acted fast Monday evening when their hospital basement flooded, cutting off power and the roof-top generators choked under Sandy's torrential rain. How you can help When the power went out, the hospital staff went into action. Ventilators giving newborns breath failed, lights dimmed and elevators in the 15-floor hospital stopped. Dr. Andrew Brotman described a desperate rush to find other hospitals to take their 260 patients and ambulances to take them there along streets flooded by the superstorm. The hospital was empty of patients by 11 a.m. Tuesday, but Brotman and his colleagues were left with the challenge of reclaiming it from Sandy's fury. Read more about the fast-thinking efforts of the hospital staff Rescue: Police chief aids hundreds who stayed behind One of Ralph Verdi's jobs as police chief of Little Ferry, New Jersey, is to make sure residents heed warnings when danger approaches. New Jersey was slammed hard. This is Atlantic City. But many of the 10,000 residents who rode out Irene last year -- the first hurricane to make landfall in New Jersey in 108 years -- might have seen Sandy as another overhyped storm. When Sandy lived up to her billing and flooded Little Ferry and two neighboring towns, Verdi's job became the rescue of residents trapped in the top floors and roofs of their homes by 6-feet-deep water. Rescuers under Verdi's direction scrambled to save a Bergen County woman who waved and shouted from her front porch. The chief has been too busy to count how many people have been whisked from rising water, but he knew it was in the hundreds -- with many others, some in pajamas and barefoot, calling for help. Read more about the rescue efforts in hard-hit New Jersey Death: She answered the call of the sea and history While the patients at Brotman's hospital and the people Verdi rescued all survived, Sandy took the life of Claudene Christian. Claudene Christian was thrilled to be a part of the Bounty. Christian, 42, was living her dream as a deckhand on a replica of the historic HMS Bounty before giant waves, churned up by Hurricane Sandy, overtook the three-masted, 180-foot sailing vessel off North Carolina's coast early Monday. While 14 crew members made it to lifeboats, waves washed Christian, Capt. Robin Waldridge and another crew members overboard. The third crew member eventually swam to a lifeboat. The U.S. Coast Guard staged a daring helicopter rescue: They flew into the hurricane's outer bands and plucked the surviving crew members from two lifeboats. Christian's body was later pulled from the sea, but Waldridge remained missing Tuesday. Read more about the adventurous life of Claudene Christian Elizabeth Cohen, Ashley Frantz and Thom Patterson contributed to this report.